The second generation (the first born in the U.S.) jumps to 12.7 and 12.9 years of schooling for males and females, respectively. Thus, the academic integration of immigrant children is invariably connected to the economic integration of their parents. Education levels have generally risen since 1980 among the largest U.S. immigrant-origin populations. Forty-six percent of immigrants are naturalized US citizens, and another 36 percent are permanent legal residents. It was unclear, however, whether this “immigrant paradox” also applied to education. Because children's sense of obligation to their immigrant parents can affect their adaptation and adjustment in the United States, several studies of children and adolescents from Asian and Latin American immigrant families have been conducted to gauge their level of obligation to the family. Immigrants compare their situations to those still living in their native country, allowing them to be positive about their situation. For example, PISA surveys focused on reading literacy indicated that immigrant students performed at a lower level in comparison to their non-migrant peers in every province across Canada, with the exception of the Atlantic region, where the results were identical.7 In Quebec, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, immigrant students’ reading scores were much lower, and the reported differences were statistically significant.8 Similarly, when the PISA survey focused on science literacy, the performance disadvantage was apparent in every province, with the largest differences observed in Quebec.9. In doing our research at the University of Washington, we reviewed articles and books and also searched for data not published in traditional venues, including conference presentations, master’s theses, and doctoral dissertations. Understanding the sources of motivation among immigrant youth can help identify factors that could be checking their growth and help us promote their success. This section analyses the immigrants' perceptions of their own ability to master the (main) language of the host country. It is clear, therefore, that these countries attracted mostly highly skilled migrants. Younger people are more educated than older people in all five migration groups. On average, these adolescents came to the United States at approximately 7 years of age (see Figure 1). In 2009, 33 million people in the United States were second-generation immigrants, representing 11% of the national population. With immigration emerging as a hot button issue in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, a timely report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) represents “an effort by scholars not engaged in politics to summon the latest research to address many contentious issues in the increasingly heated immigration debate,” according to the New York Times. Except where otherwise noted, all content on dev.edcan.ca is licensed under a non-exclusive Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License. EnglishFrançais, See the Latest Research Bulletin See the Latest EdCan Wire. Related: A statistical portrait of the nation’s foreign-born population, which includes historical trends since 1960. By contrast, the share of Mexican immigrants with a bachelor’s degree or higher has increased by only a few percentage points since 1980, reaching 6.2% in 2016.